Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A disposition to believe too readily.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. A weak or ignorant disregard of the nature or strength of the evidence upon which a belief is founded; in general, a disposition, arising from weakness or ignorance, to believe too readily, especially impossible or absurd things.
- n. Synonyms Fanaticism, Bigotry, etc.
- n. See superstition.
Wiktionary
- n. A willingness to believe in someone or something in the absence of reasonable proof; credulousness.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. Readiness of belief; a disposition to believe on slight evidence.
WordNet 3.0
- n. tendency to believe readily
Etymologies
- From French credulité, or directly from Latin crēdulitās. (Wiktionary)
- Middle English credulite, from Old French, from Latin crēdulitās, from crēdulus, credulous; see credulous. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“A wife whose mind was oriented in the new direction effectually silenced her husband's ridicule of what he called her credulity by reminding him that when wireless telegraphy was first suggested he had exclaimed, "Ah, that, you know, is one of the things that is not possible!”
“Some of the final plot turns strain credulity, and Flynn has a thing for coining hyphenated words.”
“[E] mploys a whiplash plot turn that may strain credulity, but its still an engaging suspense tale.”
“The happiness of credulity is a cheap and dangerous quality.”
“In the circumstances widespread credulity is their greatest asset, and our greatest hazard — especially when we allow the discrete questions of quality (on one hand) and rarity (on the other) to get thoroughly mixed up.”
“That the circumstances described are, sadly, fairly tame compared to the horrific situations I've encountered covering court cases, stuff that would probably strain credulity if I ever attempted to present any of it as fiction.”
“If the Obamatons want to lead with this message, they have to understand that it will strain credulity that you just now figured out that this was unworkable.”
Matthew Yglesias » Are Televised Negotiations Even Possible?
“Their haplessness, ignorance and apathy are by-products of that still more basic corruption — and credulity is in fact a type of corruption in the current social/political arena writ large.”
The Volokh Conspiracy » Attempts to Defeat the Kagan Nomination, and Political Hardball
“The coincidences so strain credulity that they border on a deus ex machina.”
A Progressive on the Prairie » Book Review: The Year of the Flood by Margaret Atwood » Print
“Nor does it strain credulity to imagine that the judges might actually have seen the art in person, as opposed to viewing the works on video or slide.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘credulity’.
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GRE Barrons Wordlist
A complete Barron's Wordlist for GRE preparation. Your online flashcard replacement.
abase, abash, abate, abbreviate, abdicate, aberrant, aberration, abet, abeyance, abhor, abject, abjure and 4087 more...
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Interesting words
A list of words that are odd or words that I have looked up.
concupiscence, brize, scree, scoria, forestaff, spanaemia, valetudinarianism, distasture, pyrethrum, laudanum, gentian, bicameral and 11184 more...
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SAT Words
But only the ones that I don't already know.
abase, abash, abominate, abstruse, acclivity, accolade, accost, adroit, adulate, adulterate, adumbrate, affray and 241 more...
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Words build meanings from origins( et...
These come from gamma meditation ,I think.
discursive, exogenous, machinations, purportedly, sumptuous, congruity, cantankerous, incongruous, festoon, hessian, ratiocinative, stratigraphic and 2053 more...
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Philosophic , etymology
every major discipline has uniquely developed esoteric nomenclature to facilitate interdisciplinary dissemination
quale , qualia, elegy, tacet, lexicon, annunciate, caste, eros, contrive, purlicue, irony, venacular, dilapidate and 569 more...
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nschotten's list
A list of words.
fecundity, atavistic, steatopygous, demiurge, sufflaminandus, occiput, trenchant, hobnails, soft-pedal, parsimony, fatuous, ratiocination and 28 more...
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gre2
aberrant, aberration, aboveboard, abrasive, abstemious, acme, admonish, affable, affluent, alacrity, allegory, alleviate and 1901 more...
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SAT Words
But only the ones that I don't already know.
abase, abash, abominate, abstruse, acclivity, accolade, accost, adroit, adulate, adulterate, adumbrate, affray and 241 more...
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apjoseph's words
insurmountable, ubiquitous, unequivocal, incumbent, asinine, amenable, sycophants, precarious, malevolent, gregarious, raison detra, nefarious and 200 more...
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Words I Know
List of most of the words I've learned
garner, abase, abate, abdicate, abduct, aberration, abet, abhor, abide, abject, abjure, abnegation and 1046 more...
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The Sog Collection
My big word list.
chaos, flaccid, empirical, flotsam, cacophony, grumble, assuage, awe, romance, mortality, coalesce, fortuitous and 3282 more...
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ADW1
obdurate, obstinate, behest, injunction, enjoin, circumspect, ensconce, discursive, lugubrious, doleful, somber, ken and 2476 more...
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strieale's Words
scientism, chronological, christophobia, subsurface, high culture, jeffersonian demo..., jacksonian democracy, incommensurable, rebuttal, discerning, disparate, anodyne and 156 more...
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GRE
acrimony, verisimilitude, tenebrious, tenebrous, dishabille, unfettered, deplorable, woebegone, credulity, naïveté, mitigate, meliorate and 475 more...
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GRE
churlish, polemical, exaltation, docile, esoteric, panache, coercion, restitution, lugubrious, indefatigable, delimit, demarcate and 99 more...
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pword
vexatious, verdigris, variegated, diatribe, vicissitude, conflagration, plurality, paragon, charlatan, panacea, sycophant, plenitude and 347 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for credulity.
kingparton Only allow me to give you a word of advice: keep your credulity out of your pockets! Don't pay for the picture till it's delivered.
Henry James, "The Madonna of the Future" Jul 28, 2011